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  "description": "by Joanna Penn Cooper  |  Lessons in flight.",
  "path": "/free-bird/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-05-20T12:34:56.000Z",
  "site": "https://www.short-reads.org",
  "tags": [
    "Muse with JPC",
    "Talking River Review",
    "supporting subscriber",
    "donation",
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    "Bluesky",
    "Hattie Fletcher",
    "Anna Hall",
    "Stephen Knezovich",
    "“Celebration #50: August 2010”",
    "“Parable”",
    "“My Sister Used to Give Me Blank Journals for My Birthday”",
    "Explore the entire Short Reads archive."
  ],
  "textContent": "Right now my biracial three-year-old thinks Africa is a place he can find on an old laminated map of the Bronx. He knows what a flag is but not what it’s for. He doesn’t know what it means when, after leaving a park on the outskirts of my family’s hometown in North Carolina, we see an oversized pickup truck sporting two Confederate flags, one at each corner of the cab. I don’t know what it means, either. When I was growing up, a white mother with a biracial child might push the child’s head down at a stoplight to avoid getting hassled. My olive-skinned grandfather used to tell me a joke about God having burned black people in the oven. White people, apparently, were underdone. Black people: burned; white people: half-baked. Got it.\n\nMy son’s first words to me this morning after opening his eyes: _Prove it_. In the past two days, he’s become very excited about the Indian buffet; the concept of gravity; his sense of sight (_I’m using my sense of looking! Look out!_). Pulling up to the Indian buffet, he lets out a series of yells. _Are you excited about life?_ I ask. _Yes!_ he replies. _How does it work?_\n\nThis morning, at the breakfast table, he says something that sounds like “free bird,” so I start singing Skynyrd to him, the words I know, which are not many. He turns his face to the window then, the sun illuminating the traces of paint on his face I thought I’d washed off after yesterday’s art project. He bares his teeth in some semblance of smile plus warrior grimace, keeping his eyes closed even after the song has ended, taking a sun bath. Finally he opens them and looks at me, holding my eyes with his own while telling me about it. _I took up the sky._\n\n* * *\n\n**Joanna Penn Cooper** is the author of a book of lyrical prose vignettes,  _The Itinerant Girl’s Guide to Self-Hypnosis_ (Brooklyn Arts Press); the poetry books  _What Is a Domicile_ (Noctuary Press) and  _Crown_ (Ravenna Press, winner of the Cathlamet Prize); and several chapbooks, including  _Wild Apples: A Flash Memoir Collection with Writing Prompts_ and  _Celebrity Ghost: Comics_ , both from Ethel Zine & Micro-Press. Her next full-length book of prose and poems,  _When We Were Fearsome_ , is forthcoming from Ethel in 2027. She lives in Durham, NC, with her impish 13(!)-year-old and a cat named Oz. Find her on Substack at  _Muse with JPC_.\n\nThis essay first appeared in Talking River Review (2017).\n\n* * *\n\n****Help keep**** _****Short Reads****_****going.****\nBecome a supporting subscriber or make a one-time donation.\n\nShare this essay on: Facebook | LinkedIn | Bluesky\n\n__Short Reads__ is 🗺️ edited by Hattie Fletcher; 💬 fact-checked and proofread by Chad Vogler; and 👀 designed by Anna Hall. This issue was ☀️ delivered to our 2,761 subscribers by Stephen Knezovich.\n\n### **From the archive**\n\n\nMay 21, 2025\n“Celebration #50: August 2010”\nby Barry Maxwell | A birthday toast.\n\nMay 22, 2024\n“Parable”\nby Matthew Harkins | Strangers on a train.\n\nMay 24, 2023\n“My Sister Used to Give Me Blank Journals for My Birthday”\nby Beth Ann Fennelly | She knew I’d need them.\n\nExplore the entire Short Reads archive.\n\n* * *",
  "title": "Free Bird",
  "updatedAt": "2026-05-20T12:34:56.514Z"
}